


the expulsion

by bluebeholder



Series: the accidental epic [3]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Best Friends, Gen, Hogwarts, Protective Newt Scamander
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 05:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14348475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Newt Scamander is expelled from Hogwarts. What happens on that day will change the course of his entire life, and send ripples far, far into the future.





	the expulsion

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all, I'm racing against time here, I swear. Before the movie contradicts this, here you go: the story of Newt Scamander's expulsion from Hogwarts. Enjoy.
> 
> For people coming in late (which, wow, that's a disclaimer I'm going to have to plaster on every fic in this series now): not canon compliant. I don't care about canon, for purposes of this series. It's a monster of its own design and I'm trying to explain it, not the second film.

“It was my fault, Headmaster,” Newt says. He steps in front of Leta, ignoring the tug on his sleeve as she tries to hold him back. “I brought it to Hogwarts—caught it in Hogsmeade and I wanted to show it to Leta, so I put it under a Freezing Charm.”

“A clever use of magic,” Professor Dumbledore says.

“And very advanced,” Professor Dippet adds.

Newt somehow feels like these endorsements aren’t enough to save his skin.

“Hold your tongue, please,” Headmaster Black says icily. “Clearly, it was not advanced enough to prevent an accident, was it?”

Newt can’t get his gaze off the floor. “No, Headmaster,” he says, swallowing hard. “I didn’t intend for it to get loose—I only—”

“It was my fault,” Leta bursts out. “I was the one holding it when it got loose—”

“The issue is not of who held the Jarvey!” Headmaster Black thunders. “The issue is of who brought it onto the grounds. Newton, you confess that you did?”

“Yes,” Newt says. He bites the inside of his cheek hard and looks the Headmaster in the eyes. “I did, Headmaster. This is my fault.”

“It certainly is,” Professor Gamp says. The Head of Slytherin house is normally a kindly sort of man, but just now he looks _furious_.

“You realize that one of your house-mates has been taken to St. Mungo’s to be treated for her injuries?” Professor Diggory asks sharply. Newt has _never_ heard his head of house speak so, but then again…she has ever right to be. The Jarvey almost killed Sarah.

Newt nods jerkily. “I do, Professor,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“Apologies are not going to make up for such severe violations, not only of Hogwarts rules, but of the _laws of the wizarding world_ ,” Headmaster Black says. Newt flinches and looks down again, hands in fists where they’re hidden by the sleeves of his robes. The Headmaster’s voice softens just a little. “However, because you are a student at Hogwarts and not yet of age, the Ministry of Magic has given us leave to handle your punishment as we see fit. We will confer for a while, and when your families arrive we will speak with them.”

And then the four professors disappear behind a door into another room of the Headmaster’s office. Moments later, heated discussion breaks out. Looks like they’ll be here for a while, then.

Newt sits down hard on the floor, arms around his knees. Leta joins him, looking utterly destroyed. “They’re going to expel me,” Newt says bleakly.

“Maybe—maybe not,” Leta says. “Professor Dumbledore is on your side, did you see?”

“One professor,” Newt says. “And Headmaster Black has the final say—and you know him!”

Leta nods, picking at the lacy hem of her sleeve. “I do,” she says softly. “Newt…you can’t go getting expelled for me.”

Newt looks sideways at his best friend. Heads shorter than he is, dark like the Shacklebolts with the eyes that are said to run in the Lestrange family. He likes her round face more than any other face at Hogwarts—more than his face. She likes frills and soft things, things that Newt likes to touch. She’s patient with him, fierce with the world, so smart she ought to have been in Ravenclaw, and bold enough that she ought to have been a Gryffindor. Newt’s in awe of getting to stand by her at all. In the last two year he’s begun to feel odd things around her—get sweaty palms, and have his heart turn over. Listening to fellow Hufflepuffs, it sounds as if Newt has fallen a bit in love with Leta.

He doesn’t really mind it, if he has.

“If one of us has to be expelled, it had better be me,” he says. “You had Outstanding in every O.W.L. last year, you deserve to be here.”

“You got Outstanding on Care of Magical Creatures and Defense Against the Dark Arts,” Leta says, nudging him with her shoulder, “and Exceeds Expectations on everything else! You deserve to be here, too.”

Newt feels himself becoming resigned to expulsion already. “Well, grades aside,” he says stubbornly, “I don’t belong at Hogwarts. I’d rather be outside—even if I get expelled I can still work with creatures and that’s all I really want.”

“That is _not_ all you really want,” Leta says. She looks at Newt with color high in her cheeks. “I know you want to be an Auror or a Healer or something important like that. Not—not work in Abraxan stables forever, or help your mother breed Hippogriffs, or whatever else.”

With the tip of his finger, Newt traces the pattern of the lace on the bottom hem of Leta’s robe, which is so long that it touches the floor when she stands, and has decorations besides. Girls’ robes are so much nicer than boys’. “I’d feel better breeding Hippogriffs than being trapped in a Charms classroom forever,” he says softly. “I hate having to speak in front of class and answer questions and take tests. I only do well when I’m working alone. I won’t miss it if I go!”

“Oh, Newt…”

“The only thing I’d miss at Hogwarts would be spending time with you,” Newt says. He feels helpless, looking sideways at Leta. She never sees him during holidays: Newt’s a Half-blood, and Leta’s family will have no truck with the Scamanders. If Newt is expelled, they’ll probably never see each other again, at least not like they do now.

Leta’s eyes look like they’re full of tears. She opens her mouth to speak, closes it, and throws her arms around Newt. He catches her and holds on tightly. A moment later she’s crying into his shoulder and he’s ineffectually rubbing her back, trying to soothe.

“It’s all my fault,” Leta says through sobs. That’s…true. She was the one who brought the Jarvey, and she was the one whose Freezing Charm failed.

“It was an accident,” Newt says. He’s going to rewrite the story. It will never, ever be Leta’s fault, he won’t allow it. “I have to help.”

“I don’t want you to go!” she wails, and Newt feels his heart crack in half. “I—I hate my house, I’m always alone too, I’m good at everything but I only _like_ you! Please don’t go! _Please_!”

Newt bites so hard on his lip he thinks he’ll go right through. It’s not up to him, though, is it? He has to take what comes, and if that means getting expelled for Leta’s sake…he’ll do it happily.

It occurs to him that this is the first time they ever embraced.

They pull themselves together by the time that the professors come back. Newt dries Leta’s face, and she tries to flatten his hair. They straighten crumpled robes and stand up straight. It’s almost an hour that they wait, and when the professors finally come back, there’s a familiar face with them.

“Theseus?” Newt whispers.

His older brother, looking utterly thunderous, strides across the room to stand by Newt, one hand on Newt’s shoulder. At sixteen Newt is a little shorter than Theseus, but he’ll be the same height soon enough. “I want it to be clear that I object in every possible way to this,” Theseus says, voice ringing.

“Your objection is noted, Mr. Scamander,” Headmaster Black says.

There’s something so comforting, not only in having his brother there, but in having his brother who is a Junior Auror at the Ministry of Magic there. Newt leans into Theseus’ hand, and Theseus squeezes hard. “Are you all right?” he asks in a low voice. He looks between Newt and Leta. “Both of you.”

“I’m fine, Mr. Scamander,” Leta says, voice neutral and cool. A proper Slytherin’s voice. “Newt’s been very gracious, telling the truth of things.”

Newt sees Theseus’ eyes go narrow, and before Theseus can say anything Newt shakes his head sharply. “I had to tell the truth, Theseus,” he says, hating the way he sounds like he’s begging. “I couldn’t let Leta take a fall for something she didn’t do.”

“Your character is good, even if you have terrible judgement,” Headmaster Black says. He folds his arms, watching Newt impassively. “Professor Dumbledore made a fair argument, Newton. Since the Ministry has left this to our discretion, and we have received word that Sarah is perfectly fine, your wand will be retained.”

Newt breathes out panic he hadn’t known he was feeling. “Thank you,” he whispers.

“However,” Headmaster Black says, “we cannot in good conscience allow you to stay in contact with other students when your judgement is demonstrated to be so poor as to endanger the life of another student. Therefore, effective immediately…Newton Scamander, you are _expelled_ from Hogwarts.”

The next hour is a blur. Newt remembers Leta being told to stay behind, presumably to be scolded for her role in the calamity. He remembers packing his trunk while one of his roommates looks on, silently judging. He remembers Theseus casting a charm on his trunk, to carry it out; then throwing a few immensely heated words at Professor Diggory. He remembers whispers and stares in the hall. Newt remembers Leta watching him go out the doors, absolutely impassive, to where a flying carriage waits. He has a vague recollection of a conversation with Professor Dumbledore, who promises to look after him and make sure that he’s taught well.

And that’s it.

Newt can’t make himself look back at Hogwarts.

For a while they fly in silence. Newt stares out the window. Theseus, presumably, stares at Newt. At last, Theseus speaks.

“You didn’t actually bring that Jarvey into the castle, did you?”

“No,” Newt says. He folds his arms tight around himself, hunching his shoulders. “But…I couldn’t let Leta take the fall for it, Theseus.”

Theseus sighs. “At least they let you keep your wand,” he says, obviously trying to be light. “It could be worse.”

“Yes,” Newt says softly. “It could.”

“I’m sorry that you won’t be going to Hogwarts anymore, though,” Theseus says. He reaches over the divide, as if to touch Newt, and Newt flinches. He doesn’t want to be touched, but he doesn’t know how to say it. Theseus sees, though, and withdraws. “Really a shame, that.”

Newt shakes his head. “I don’t mind, much. I know…there are plenty of people who think it’s home,” Newt says. He bites his lip a moment before continuing. “But I never did.”

“What do you mean?”

“It just wasn’t home,” Newt repeats. He turns and stares out the window. A strange sense of lightness is buoying him up as he looks out over the curve of land below them, the sweep of Scotland as they sail south through the skies toward the Scamander estate.

“Then where is it?” Theseus asks.

“I don’t know,” Newt says. He leans against the window, thinking about…just how far he can go, without the walls of the castle wrapping around him. The pain under his ribs, where Leta’s friendship sits, is sharp, but it doesn’t hurt as much as he expected, now.

Theseus sighs. “Merlin’s beard, Newt…you’re so odd.”

Normally, that hurts. Right now…it doesn’t at all. Newt just shrugs. His mind is on other things, on dreams he never once talked about, even with Leta. Of some far-off place where nobody knows him at all. Where they might love him because of his oddities, and not in spite of them. Where they’ll welcome him back warmly, instead of with exasperation.

Hogwarts was never that, for Newt.

But somewhere, way off past the horizon…that place has to be waiting.

And now, now he’s free to go and find it.

“I don’t know where home is,” Newt says, half to himself, “but I’m going to find it, someday. Just wait and see.”

**Author's Note:**

> So here’s what we have on Newt: he was expelled for “the illegal possession of a magical beast causing endangerment of human life and violation of animal welfare laws 101/304. The beast in question was a Jarvey. It was witnessed by multiple people, and caused endangerment of human life.”
> 
> As of this writing, here’s what we know about Leta and Newt’s relationship, per the wiki: “In 1913, one of Leta's experiments involving a Jarvey went wrong and endangered the life of another student. Rather than see his good friend expelled, Newt took the blame and was sentenced to be expelled from Hogwarts in her place. This left him bitter, but still much in love with Leta.” 
> 
> Naturally, I just can’t leave well enough alone.
> 
> At this point, I’m not even sure how this coheres with canon, so bear with me. In “the aurors”, the earliest fic in the series, set in 1909, Newt is stated to be twelve. In Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, he is thirty-two. Therefore, he’s sixteen and in his sixth year at Hogwarts in this fic in 1913. Given the ages I’ve thrown around for everyone else in various fic, Theseus is seven or so years Newt’s senior, at twenty-three. 
> 
> This does raise for me one question. How the hell did Newt end up wrangling dragons on the Eastern Front in WWI? He was sixteen when he was EXPELLED. The war began in 1914, so even presuming that they didn’t send Newt right off the bat, he’d have barely cracked TWENTY before he was off with the Ukranian Ironbellies. Child prodigy or no, and understanding that the Muggles certainly sent people of Newt’s age into the trenches, why the HELL would the Ministry send a _HOGWARTS DROP-OUT_ to serve on a critical and secret mission on a war front? 
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> Yes, Professor Diggory is a distant relative of Cedric Diggory; Professor Dippet has been cast as Head of Ravenclaw and will become Headmaster in 1925; Professor Gamp’s name is pulled haphazardly from lists of wizarding names; and Headmaster Black is indeed Phineas Nigellus Black himself.


End file.
